As Usual, PETA is Wrong About Whaling

[MrMan999]

Bloody PETA... doing more to harm animal welfare then Cruella De Vil... Anyone who donates to that group is a moron and should be slapped around the head. Give your money to the RSPCA or ASPCA depending on where you are.

Look I think whaling is an odious practice, hell I think my government (Australia) needs to grow a set of balls and send ou navy down to the Antarctic waters we claim and sink the damn whaling boats 'conducting research' that's how much I'm against it... but from a historical perspective it happened, like the article said it was a vital part of the economy of the times, hell I grew up in a city that was literally founded (oldest in my state btw) as a place to hunt whales, there are still whaling artefacts around for the tourists.

If you're writing or making something set in a historical time period you really should do your research, as it seems the makers of AC4 are doing, PETA is just attention whoring again, like the author said in the article whaling, as terrible as it is, is something that needs to be involved as it is a historical vital bit of information, and gaming are increasingly becoming a medium for teaching things.

How many people learned more about the Crusades in AC1 than they did in their 'history classes', even after stripping the fantastical elements out, you can slip a lot of real information into a narrative if your careful.

Amen to sending the navy after them, the new Canberra carriers would do the job nicely (using aircraft to find offending ships then either guiding warships to intercept or sinking it themselves.

And risk a massive international incident that may lead to war. Great Idea. I hate whaling as much as the next guy, but sinking the ships won't solve anything in the long term.

They would be ordered to surrender etc, sinking would be if they tried to run. By entering our waters and refusing to surrender, the ship would under international law be a legit target. Same way the US sinks drug boats coming from south America.

And the whaling ships operate around Antartica, which is (with the exception of McMurdo) almost entirely unclaimed and therefore is not covered by any countries whaling laws.

 

[RicoADF]

Bloody PETA... doing more to harm animal welfare then Cruella De Vil... Anyone who donates to that group is a moron and should be slapped around the head. Give your money to the RSPCA or ASPCA depending on where you are.

Look I think whaling is an odious practice, hell I think my government (Australia) needs to grow a set of balls and send ou navy down to the Antarctic waters we claim and sink the damn whaling boats 'conducting research' that's how much I'm against it... but from a historical perspective it happened, like the article said it was a vital part of the economy of the times, hell I grew up in a city that was literally founded (oldest in my state btw) as a place to hunt whales, there are still whaling artefacts around for the tourists.

If you're writing or making something set in a historical time period you really should do your research, as it seems the makers of AC4 are doing, PETA is just attention whoring again, like the author said in the article whaling, as terrible as it is, is something that needs to be involved as it is a historical vital bit of information, and gaming are increasingly becoming a medium for teaching things.

How many people learned more about the Crusades in AC1 than they did in their 'history classes', even after stripping the fantastical elements out, you can slip a lot of real information into a narrative if your careful.

Amen to sending the navy after them, the new Canberra carriers would do the job nicely (using aircraft to find offending ships then either guiding warships to intercept or sinking it themselves.

And risk a massive international incident that may lead to war. Great Idea. I hate whaling as much as the next guy, but sinking the ships won't solve anything in the long term.

They would be ordered to surrender etc, sinking would be if they tried to run. By entering our waters and refusing to surrender, the ship would under international law be a legit target. Same way the US sinks drug boats coming from south America.

And the whaling ships operate around Antartica, which is (with the exception of McMurdo) almost entirely unclaimed and therefore is not covered by any countries whaling laws.

I was referring to any that enter Australian waters. International water is free game sadly. In the end the government hasn't got the backbone to even do that.

Captcha - Too bad. indeed it is.

 

[MrMan999]

Bloody PETA... doing more to harm animal welfare then Cruella De Vil... Anyone who donates to that group is a moron and should be slapped around the head. Give your money to the RSPCA or ASPCA depending on where you are.

Look I think whaling is an odious practice, hell I think my government (Australia) needs to grow a set of balls and send ou navy down to the Antarctic waters we claim and sink the damn whaling boats 'conducting research' that's how much I'm against it... but from a historical perspective it happened, like the article said it was a vital part of the economy of the times, hell I grew up in a city that was literally founded (oldest in my state btw) as a place to hunt whales, there are still whaling artefacts around for the tourists.

If you're writing or making something set in a historical time period you really should do your research, as it seems the makers of AC4 are doing, PETA is just attention whoring again, like the author said in the article whaling, as terrible as it is, is something that needs to be involved as it is a historical vital bit of information, and gaming are increasingly becoming a medium for teaching things.

How many people learned more about the Crusades in AC1 than they did in their 'history classes', even after stripping the fantastical elements out, you can slip a lot of real information into a narrative if your careful.

Amen to sending the navy after them, the new Canberra carriers would do the job nicely (using aircraft to find offending ships then either guiding warships to intercept or sinking it themselves.

And risk a massive international incident that may lead to war. Great Idea. I hate whaling as much as the next guy, but sinking the ships won't solve anything in the long term.

They would be ordered to surrender etc, sinking would be if they tried to run. By entering our waters and refusing to surrender, the ship would under international law be a legit target. Same way the US sinks drug boats coming from south America.

And the whaling ships operate around Antartica, which is (with the exception of McMurdo) almost entirely unclaimed and therefore is not covered by any countries whaling laws.

I was referring to any that enter Australian waters. International water is free game sadly. In the end the government hasn't got the backbone to even do that.

Captcha - Too bad. indeed it is.

Thats different then. But that would only encourage any Japanese shipping to avoid Australia like the plague.

 

[Farther than stars]

PETA: condemning the slaughter of virtual whales, not ya' know, the virtual humans.

There's not necessarily anything wrong with lobbying groups focusing on one specific area over another. Look at what feminist lobbying groups have done for women and continue doing for women, even today in Western societies. It's good to have minority voices in a democracy. It stops the overwhelming masses from disregarding the plight of those who would otherwise be ignored. Then it's up to government, as a democratically elected body, to decide what balance to strike between different interests. After all, if all everyone ever talked about was humans, animals would never be given any attention at all.

This is because PETA was never about saving animals, except in the minds of the poor saps who signed up at the low levels. PETA is about making money. It's owner set themselves up as a non-profit organization so that she could get tax write-offs and uses the money to buy shit for herself, including a huge-ass home that she also gets as a tax write-off by declaring it a "headquarters." They euthanize 90% of the animals they save at minimum because actually finding good homes would cost them money. Their huge campaigns of late ARE purely about getting attention so that they can sucker more people into giving them money.

PETA is an evil organization.

Welcome to the darker side of "non-profit". Have you seen what pay-offs Amnesty International CEOs have been getting lately?

 

[ThunderCavalier]

PETA, can you please focus more on the animals that are being killed rather than the things that we employ as gameplay mechanics?

Sincerely,

Sane people

 

[Virgilthepagan]

Might be one of the best articles I've read on this site. Bravo!
Honestly I've got some stupidly mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, in my academic years I wrote a paper on whaling today from an ethnographic point, and I kind of despise the Japanese position; on the other, PETA's being really dumb here. They're fictional whales, and it's not going to sway people towards whaling, especially in the context you give it. In this game I might hesitate to whale, but that's...well, that's just because I'm a very modern human playing a game set in a different time. PETA needs to figure that out, and they need to realize that planting a stereotype on gamers and condemning this is a waste of even their time.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

Hey PETA, if we're going to ignore entire sections of history just because we don't agree with it, why stop with animals?

For example, I think books such as To Kill A Mockingbird should all be burnt due to their encouraging the oppression of African-American. Then, we'll just completely forget about the Holocaust, because that was quite an embarrassing moment of history for everyone, now wasn't it? Wouldn't want all those nasty racist thoughts from the past plaguing us now, eh?

Forget about the World Wars, the Great Depression, all sorts of awful, awful things that had happened because, you know, admitting their damn existence is just begging for more, and hey presto! It's sunshine and lollipops for everyone!

 

[Product Placement]

Why are people (and this article) talking about Whaling in AC4, as if it's a confirmed feature in the game? As far as I understand it, PETA was jumping on a chance to condemn a popular game franchise for attention reasons and their complaint was almost entirely based on a screen shot where a whale can be seen in the background, swimming around happily, not being hunted to its death, probably since pirate ships weren't bloody equipped to hunt whales.

 

[tkioz]

Bloody PETA... doing more to harm animal welfare then Cruella De Vil... Anyone who donates to that group is a moron and should be slapped around the head. Give your money to the RSPCA or ASPCA depending on where you are.

Look I think whaling is an odious practice, hell I think my government (Australia) needs to grow a set of balls and send ou navy down to the Antarctic waters we claim and sink the damn whaling boats 'conducting research' that's how much I'm against it... but from a historical perspective it happened, like the article said it was a vital part of the economy of the times, hell I grew up in a city that was literally founded (oldest in my state btw) as a place to hunt whales, there are still whaling artefacts around for the tourists.

If you're writing or making something set in a historical time period you really should do your research, as it seems the makers of AC4 are doing, PETA is just attention whoring again, like the author said in the article whaling, as terrible as it is, is something that needs to be involved as it is a historical vital bit of information, and gaming are increasingly becoming a medium for teaching things.

How many people learned more about the Crusades in AC1 than they did in their 'history classes', even after stripping the fantastical elements out, you can slip a lot of real information into a narrative if your careful.

Amen to sending the navy after them, the new Canberra carriers would do the job nicely (using aircraft to find offending ships then either guiding warships to intercept or sinking it themselves.

And risk a massive international incident that may lead to war. Great Idea. I hate whaling as much as the next guy, but sinking the ships won't solve anything in the long term.

They would be ordered to surrender etc, sinking would be if they tried to run. By entering our waters and refusing to surrender, the ship would under international law be a legit target. Same way the US sinks drug boats coming from south America.

And the whaling ships operate around Antartica, which is (with the exception of McMurdo) almost entirely unclaimed and therefore is not covered by any countries whaling laws.

Actually a HUGE chunk of it and it's waters belong to Australia, though Japan doesn't recognise it. Traditionally the only way to prove you own something is to defend it... so let's let the defence begin. According to recent poles a VAST majority of Australians are violently against Japanese whaling, and if they are in OUR waters we should make that point CLEAR.

 

[MrMan999]

Bloody PETA... doing more to harm animal welfare then Cruella De Vil... Anyone who donates to that group is a moron and should be slapped around the head. Give your money to the RSPCA or ASPCA depending on where you are.

Look I think whaling is an odious practice, hell I think my government (Australia) needs to grow a set of balls and send ou navy down to the Antarctic waters we claim and sink the damn whaling boats 'conducting research' that's how much I'm against it... but from a historical perspective it happened, like the article said it was a vital part of the economy of the times, hell I grew up in a city that was literally founded (oldest in my state btw) as a place to hunt whales, there are still whaling artefacts around for the tourists.

If you're writing or making something set in a historical time period you really should do your research, as it seems the makers of AC4 are doing, PETA is just attention whoring again, like the author said in the article whaling, as terrible as it is, is something that needs to be involved as it is a historical vital bit of information, and gaming are increasingly becoming a medium for teaching things.

How many people learned more about the Crusades in AC1 than they did in their 'history classes', even after stripping the fantastical elements out, you can slip a lot of real information into a narrative if your careful.

Amen to sending the navy after them, the new Canberra carriers would do the job nicely (using aircraft to find offending ships then either guiding warships to intercept or sinking it themselves.

And risk a massive international incident that may lead to war. Great Idea. I hate whaling as much as the next guy, but sinking the ships won't solve anything in the long term.

They would be ordered to surrender etc, sinking would be if they tried to run. By entering our waters and refusing to surrender, the ship would under international law be a legit target. Same way the US sinks drug boats coming from south America.

And the whaling ships operate around Antartica, which is (with the exception of McMurdo) almost entirely unclaimed and therefore is not covered by any countries whaling laws.

Actually a HUGE chunk of it and it's waters belong to Australia, though Japan doesn't recognise it. Traditionally the only way to prove you own something is to defend it... so let's let the defence begin. According to recent poles a VAST majority of Australians are violently against Japanese whaling, and if they are in OUR waters we should make that point CLEAR.

I genuinely did not know that. Have at it then.

 

[Vault101]

as far as I'm concerned PETA are just another nutty extremeist group with a "slightly" more socially acceptible "goal"

I grew up in a city that was literally founded (oldest in my state btw) as a place to hunt whales, there are still whaling artefacts around for the tourists.

completley random guess but...
its not Albany is it?

 

[tkioz]

as far as I'm concerned PETA are just another nutty extremeist group with a "slightly" more socially acceptible "goal"

I grew up in a city that was literally founded (oldest in my state btw) as a place to hunt whales, there are still whaling artefacts around for the tourists.

completley random guess but...
its not Albany is it?

Nahh Portland, Victoria, Australia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland,_Victoria]. That was my point whaling was a world wide industry.

 

[Vault101]

Nahh Portland, Victoria, Australia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland,_Victoria]. That was my point whaling was a world wide industry.

ah I see....Albany (WA) was a whaling town too I belive

 

[bjj hero]

No matter how you feel about PETA, or whether whaling helped industrialise the West, whaling was wrong, just as slavery and apartheid were wrong. Wales never posed a threat to us. We had no need to venture into their territory and start killing them off in such huge numbers. That we did is one of the great shames of humanity as a species.

Whaling is a nasty business and their is no real need for it in current times. I dont think comparing it with apartheid or slavery is fair though, unless you will also compare cattle/chicken farming etc. alongside such things. Comparing slavery to hunting is a big jump. I personally believe whaling is quite far down the list of low moments for humanity. We've done much worse to each other fully understanding that the other side are people too.

Humanity has always exploited animals and the environment, whales at the time were considered just another resource. I think it should also be consideration that the west was still deeply christian in belief and culture. The bible is quite explicit in places that all of the plants and animals have been put here to be used by mankind. People of the time knew no better.

 

[tkioz]

edit: never mind, not worth the aggravation.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Is this actually going to be fun though? I have trouble enough killing animals in Tomb Raider and Skyrim. I think Whaling is just going to make me feel like a massive jerk since whales are actually really intelligent creatures. .

Maybe that's what they are going for.

 

[Yopaz]

Firstly, your history is a little bit selective: the only people who tended to directly benefit from whale products in the past were the rich aristocratic classes who could afford to purchase them. Whalebone corsets and whale-derived cosmetics were the property only of the wealthiest ladies of the era. Likewise, very few houses could afford to be entirely lit by whale-oil lamps. For the working classes, who made up the majority of the population, such items were unaffordable luxuries.

Secondly, while we can look back pragmatically and say that whaling had its place in the industrialisation of western society, the sad fact is that the more and more we learn about whales, the more our rapid decimations of their population seems like a crime against nature. These are highly intelligent animals, possibly second only to humans in terms of cognitive ability. Not only have they developed advanced forms of sonar communication that allow them to communicate with each other over vast distances, certain species have developed complex songs that are repeated and slowly changed over time. Moreover, science is proving with ever greater certainty that certain whale species exhibit self-awareness, and may be capable of higher forms of cognition than we had ever though possible.

No matter how you feel about PETA, or whether whaling helped industrialise the West, whaling was wrong, just as slavery and apartheid were wrong. Wales never posed a threat to us. We had no need to venture into their territory and start killing them off in such huge numbers. That we did is one of the great shames of humanity as a species.

I would hope that Ubisoft will shine a light on the horrible ethics of whaling, but I doubt it. An annual series is not exactly the sort of place developers go to in order to write commentary on the nature of whaling, and if Ubisoft turn it into anything more than an 'action-packed thrill ride', I'll be surprised.

Are you saying we shouldn't venture into the territory of whaling because it's wrong? Should we ignore part of our history because it's unpleasant? Whaling had an important part of what eventually became our modern society. Industry, machines, engines. If we want to portray the past should we ignore the fact that whaling was a part of it? Should we ignore slavery because slavery is wrong? Should we ignore how racism was socially accepted? The Nazis were bad. Should World War 2's terrible events be put behind us and forgotten?

Personally I find that a lot more disturbing than including it. We need to be reminded of the errors of our past, we need to make up our minds by seeing the facts and combining those with our personal ethics. Sure Assassin's Creed 4 could show us that everyone was against whaling and thinking the practice to be cruel and inhumane. That would however be a blunt faced lie. If they want to portray whaling as what it was then let them. Leave it up to us to find the practice disgusting. We don't learn anything from being spoon fed false information.

Also claiming Wales never held a threat to us is a lie. England did the right thing when they seized power over them.

 

[Lightknight]

I'm sure they're just afraid that someone is going to play the game and then buy/rent a whaling vessel along with a crew of experienced harpooners to emulate the awesomeness displayed in the game. [/sarcasm]

Since PETA funds lawyers that defend actual terrorists that bomb facilities they feel are harming animals I place them in the highest level of contempt when compared with noble groups that advocate proper treatment of animals without encouraging and helping those that would do harm to humans or use illegal methods to achieve their goals.

Whaling is still an issue and needs to be stopped in real life, but video games aren't going to increase the activity of it or even suddenly make us think it's a good thing any more than video games make us think murder a positive thing to go out and do (let alone including the exorbitant costs involved in whaling). Though I do admit that I have an overpowering desire to purchase a whip or morning star and then go vampire hunting in large castles... so maybe they're onto something... [/ridicule]

 

[LiMaSaRe]

There's not necessarily anything wrong with lobbying groups focusing on one specific area over another. Look at what feminist lobbying groups have done for women and continue doing for women, even today in Western societies. It's good to have minority voices in a democracy. It stops the overwhelming masses from disregarding the plight of those who would otherwise be ignored. Then it's up to government, as a democratically elected body, to decide what balance to strike between different interests. After all, if all everyone ever talked about was humans, animals would never be given any attention at all.

This is definitely a peeve of mine. Feminist lobbying groups provide a "minority voice"? the minority of which ~51% of Americans are a member? open a dictionary.

 

[LiMaSaRe]

No matter how you feel about PETA, or whether whaling helped industrialise the West, whaling was wrong, just as slavery and apartheid were wrong. Wales never posed a threat to us. We had no need to venture into their territory and start killing them off in such huge numbers. That we did is one of the great shames of humanity as a species.

Pigs and cows never posed a threat to us. Carrots and spinach never posed a threat to us. I'm not sure " not posing a threat to us" is much of a reason not to harm other species, because then we would not be able to kill any other living thing on Earth.
And as has been pointed out, no, whaling is not the same as slavery or apartheid, and your opinions are not facts anyway, there is no wrongness meter you can consult.